“Former Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer won a frenetic bidding war for ownership of the Los Angeles Clippers, with his $2-billion offer setting a record price for an NBA team,” James Rainey reports for The Los Angeles Times.

“Ballmer, who was chief executive of Microsoft for 14 years, was chosen over competitors that included Los Angeles-based investors Tony Ressler and Bruce Karsh and a group that included David Geffen and executives from the Guggenheim Group, the Chicago-based owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, according to three individuals familiar with the negotiations,” Rainey reports. “One of the individuals with knowledge of the negotiations said the Geffen group bid $1.6 billion and Ressler at $1.2 billion. The sale price is almost four times the highest previous NBA franchise sale price — the $550 million paid earlier this month for the Milwaukee Bucks.”

MacDailyNews Take: Leave it to Balmy to wildly overbid.

Steve Ballmer

“The prospective sale by Clippers co-owner Shelly Sterling comes five days ahead of an NBA hearing to oust her family from ownership following a controversy in which Donald Sterling insulted African-Americans in a secret audio recording,” Rainey reports. The tentative deal still must receive the blessing of her husband, Donald Sterling, who has waxed and waned on the question of whether he would allow his wife to sell the team he has controlled for more than three decades.”

“The deal also needs the eventual approval of 29 other NBA owners, but is expected to clear that hurdle as long as Ballmer reaffirms his pledge to keep the team in Los Angeles and not move it to Seattle, where he lives,” Rainey reports. “Ballmer, 58, left the software giant in February and has an estimated net worth of $20 billion.”

I am sure there are brilliant people at Micro$oft, but Ballmer may have been the smartest of all. He figured out a way to build sub par commodity junk, nearly tear the company to pieces, hand over the keys to the house to Apple, and still managed to amass a fortune. Frankly, I wish he would have stayed longer, 2 more years and the moron would have run the company into the ground. At least the Clippers will be using Windows 8 and the FUD Windows phones. Good luck down there boys – and remember – DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS!!!!